ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager

Description

Portfolio Manager is an interactive energy management tool that allows users to track and asses energy and water consumption, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, in commercial buildings. Users may use the online tool to benchmark the performance of one building or a whole portfolio of buildings. Users can then use the results to identify under-performing buildings, set goals for energy performance, verify efficiency improvements, and receive EPA recognition for superior energy performance.

Eligibility

Portfolio Manager can be used to manage the energy and water consumption of any building.

Eligibility criteria for the 1-100 ENERGY STAR score, can be found on the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager webpage.

How the Program Works

The first step to reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint is to assess the building’s energy performance, water efficiency, and carbon emissions using the Portfolio Manager.

Generally, users will need to:

• provide the building address, year built and contact information
• collect and input the building gross floor area and key operating characteristics for each major space type in the building
• gather at least 11 consecutive months of utility bills for all fuel types used in the building

The information requested by Portfolio Manager will vary depending on the type of property and where the property is located. To aid in the process, users can refer to the Data Collection Worksheet to get a complete list of the information that will need to be entered into Portfolio Manager.

Portfolio Manager will then generate a Statement of Energy Performance for each building, summarizing building characteristics, energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and energy performance ratings where applicable.

Portfolio Manager allows users to benchmark, or compare building results, against similar buildings in a user’s portfolio, past performance, target performance, and the Sustainable Buildings Checklist which is built into the software. Users can use this information to identify areas of inefficient energy use, and to guide energy efficiency investments to improve building performance.

Certain properties may also receive a 1-100 ENERGY STAR score, which indicates how efficiently buildings use energy on a 1-100 scale; an ENERGY STAR energy performance score of 50 indicates average energy performance while an ENERGY STAR score of 75 or better indicates top performance.

Users can also earn an ENERGY STAR certification for their building which certifies that the facility meets strict energy performance standards set by the EPA. To qualify, a building must obtain an energy performance score of 75 or higher.

Please visit the Portfolio Manager Training webpage for how-to guides, short videos, and live and recorded training sessions.

How to Apply

To get started, create an account through the Portfolio Manager webpage.

Contact Information

Questions can be submitted through the online contact form.